Paper Heart is a sweet, playful mockumentary

Rented “Paper Heart” last night. It’s a cute movie starring Charlyne Yi (who previously I had only seen as the super-stoned girlfriend in Knocked up (see pic). But apparently Yi is a bit of a stand-up comedian slash musician and has been taken under the wing of comedy powerhouse Judd Apatow who encouraged Yi to write.

The film is a new type of mockumentary called a “hybrid documentary”, where there are non-fiction documentary interviews with real people, but then a fictional storyline is weaved in as if it were reality as well.

The faux movie in this case is about Love, with Yi as the interviewer because she proclaims not to believe in love and is sure she will never experience it. Meanwhile the fictional story is the budding romance between Yi and fellow comedic actor Michael Cera (who at the time of the film was her real-life boyfriend).  Cera is perfect for this role of the comfortable in his own skin, nerdy and funny guy. Sure Cera plays the same guy in every role, but I find it ok since he does it so well I find him entertaining.

Anyways, the movie is pretty good, Cera and Yi are so likable and the interviews are interesting. But I found the star of the show to be the DVDs special features, in particular a series of promotional interviews Yi and director Nicholas Jasenovec did with their friends, who just happen to be great comedic minds like Demetri Martin, Bill Hader, Jack Black, Rob Huebel, Paul Rust, David Krumholtz. , and more.

Oddly, while most of the interviews were clearly thought out ahead of time to produce laughs, the interview with Bobcat Goldwaith had a serious tone. Bobcat is such a deeper person then his comedy would ever lead you to believe – as you can see from his opening line: “Sometimes when you are in a relationship, you say ‘I love you’, but what you’re really saying is ‘Do you love me?'” Of course he ended the interview with the funniest and raunchiest line of the series, saying exactly what some of the other interviews flirted around.

Another interesting interview was in the deleted scenes, this time with a young boy on a playground expounding about true love:

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